[OT] Do you believe in ghosts?

[Bran Blackbyrd]

My opinion on ghosts? I don't know. I don't think I've ever encountered one but I'd like to quote Dr. Midnight and say, "I've never seen a ghost, but I'm an imaginative coward, so I'm easily spooked." Hehehe. I like to read about hauntings and the paranormal, but I pay for it with the "creeping paranoia" for quite a while afterwards.

My friend used to describe some "visitations" he had during his very early childhood, some disturbing, some not. Most centered around someone he referred to as "the green man". They ended eventually when the "man" said it was time for it to go. In the last visit my friend said their were woodland creatures around the green man. It wasn't until sometime after high school that I informed him about the Green Man/Men of European mythology. He was pretty flabbergasted, he had never heard of them.
Whether this was some sort of paranormal encounter as witnessed through the eyes of a child, or simply a product of his, quite active, imagination...

The sleep paralysis thing has happened to me before. It's frustrating because you are conscious (though how lucid I do not know) but you cannot move or speak, and sometimes it feels like you can't even breathe. It takes a supreme amount of effort/willpower to even move my head the tiniest bit. Horrible. But other than the physical and mental discomfort of being unable to move or cry out for help, I have never associated the phenomenon with fear or terror or the paranormal. Not even with nightmares.
I did have it occur once at the same time I was dreaming, and the situation was rather odd.
I got up on a Saturday and then started dozing on the couch. My feet were pointed towards the front door. In my dream, the door crashed open violently and a whirlwind, a small tornado, came swirling toward me. The air got heavy and hard to breathe, then the whirlwind was on top of me, pressing down on my chest and I could not breathe at all. As I awoke, I still couldn't move or breathe and I had the impression that I could still hear the roar of the wind and that the tornado was going back out the door.
It was pretty intense.

Also sometimes I experience flashes of colored lights and loud noises as I'm falling asleep or waking up. As I understand it, this is another common, documented occurrence called Hypnagogic Hallucinations. Usually it would take the form of me waking up to a sound that uncannily resembled the air horns of a large truck coming at me, because the sound would crescendo until I was fully awake. It was a bit disconcerting, but not disturbing. It doesn't happen to me much anymore.

Now however, I have a different problem, I will wake feeling extremely groggy and disoriented, dizzy, barely coherent. This state gets a little better after a few minutes, but it hangs on for hours. I think that's because it's being caused by a severe lack of oxygen. The Lewis family sinus problems are probably just catching up to me as I get older. Maybe we all have sleep apnea?

Edit: Actually, the thing that disturbs me about sleep paralysis is when I wonder if that's what a coma is like...
The pressure on the chest some people experience is no doubt part of the reason incubi/succubi are portrayed as sitting on a person's chest.

 

[rampant insanity]

Come to think of it, I have had this one experience with sleep paralysis.

I was studying for a music exam, so I put on Bach's Fugue in G minor to take it apart and examine it. So there I was headphones on, on a sunny afternoon. I closed my eyes so I could really focus on the different lines of music. The next thing I know is that I'm falling onto my bed and struggling to stay awake. All I can remember is that I kept saying to myself "if you fall asleep, you'll never wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Come on, wake up!" Eventually I woke up. Ripped the headphones out of my ear and went outside and find someone who can keep me the HELL away from sleeping.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Also sometimes I experience flashes of colored lights and loud noises as I'm falling asleep or waking up. As I understand it, this is another common, documented occurrence called Hypnagogic Hallucinations. Usually it would take the form of me waking up to a sound that uncannily resembled the air horns of a large truck coming at me, because the sound would crescendo until I was fully awake. It was a bit disconcerting, but not disturbing. It doesn't happen to me much anymore.

I get this all the time. Very disturbing. I went to a sleep clinic and that was one of the first things they asked me about.

I've never heard air horns, but I've heard a gunshot in the same room as me and a dog bark.

 

[Grundle]

To answer the original questions: no and no. I choose to "believe" as little as possible.

Because the Monkey concept ignores certain realities of probability. And your pi example is flawed because while a monkey might randomnly type out five letters in sequence that make sense, the probability of typing out a whole book is so improbable as to be impossible. Your program would for instance, to perform a similar task, (taking into account the fact there are only 10 numerical symbols and at least 40 symbols, including letters, numbers, periods, quotation marks, etc.) have to produce a number of pi that had four times as many symbols in it as the whole of War and Peace. It is simply not going to happen. Furthermore, it is generally accepted in probability that when a pattern shows evidence of design, it is not a random pattern.

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
Given...
* only one (dilligent) monkey
* one typewriter (with inexhaustible ribbon & paper)
* and infinite time

Our simian friend will not only succeed in replicating War & Peace, he'll also have recreated every other written work ever created and he'll have done so an infinite number of times. This is an undisputable fact of probability and the definition of infinity.

Furthermore, it is generally accepted in probability that when a pattern shows evidence of design, it is not a random pattern.

What?! Not so my friend. This is a common mistake made when thinking of probabilities. In a random process ANY individual pattern is possible. The occurance of a particular pattern which might be recognizable or noteworthy (to a human mind) is no less likely then any other of the infinite number of possibilities.

However in the end it is a matter of faith. Those that accept evolution as fact have to accept by faith that anything is possible given enough time and those of us who believe in design don't.

Aughhhh!!!
The beauty of evolution is that it requires NO FAITH or BELIEF!!!! It is an explanation that ties together all of the facts. Is it the truth? It doesn't matter!!! The theory explains all the facts as they exist at the moment, and that is all a theory is supposed to do.

Perhaps at some point in the future, it will be replaced by a better theory - just as Newtonian mechanics were superceded by Einstein's Relativity. But just as apples continue to fall at a constant rate of acceleration now as they did in Newton's day, the fundamental facts of evolution are with us to stay - regardless of what human being choose to "believe".

 

[Irysangel]

Glad to see I'm not the only one with a ghost cat. Not long after we moved into our current house, my (then) cat ran into something nasty (lord knows what) and turned up at our house a mangled, bloody mess. My parents took her to the vet's to get her put to sleep, and I cried for a week straight. That was a couple of years ago, and I constantly get the 'prickle' feeling when I'm in a room by myself. Most nights when I'm tucked under the covers and with the lights out, I'll feel a weight suddenly on the end of the bed, like a cat is jumping on it. And I feel the weight of a small animal laying on my hip when I sleep on my side (my cat LOVED to lay on me). I used to think it was just maybe a breeze, or something, but the feeling is too heavy and distinct, and tends to happen when I'm still wide awake. First time it happened, I thought it was my other cat. I tried to brush her off, and my hand found nothing. Woke up, turned on the lights, and the room was empty. It creeped me out a little, so I opened the door to get a drink of water, and my other cat runs up to me, meowing--she had just left the kitchen.

And of course, everyone's seen the shadow going around the corner of the wall.

Oooged me out for the longest time, but I figure it's a harmless type of thing. At my previous house, we used to have a lot of problems with hygiene products (not like that! ). Deodorant sticks would be broken and crammed down the drain of the tub, or the sink (same with toothpaste and shampoo) and things in the bathroom would turn up missing and show up two days later in the fridge. THAT really used to freak me out more than anything.

Speaking of sleeping issues, has anyone else ever been sleeping and you'll be dreaming about something falling on your head (like a bug or snake), or dream about being attacked by a ghost, and wake up? I dream sometimes that I'm laying in my bed, and I'll be attacked by something--and it seems so REAL that it's more frightening than anything else, and I can't go back to sleep. I'm fairly sure it's psychological more than anything else, as it's only been occuring for the past few months.

Ok, I've rambled long enough...

 

[Daniel Knight]

Also as to monkeys......
Teaching monkeys to re-type Shakespeare's Hamlet (I think it was Hamlet...

Yeah, it was Hamlet. All reminds me of the start of my Story Houre. Kind of makes you wonder what really is possible.

To have a read click here.

 

[Genysys]

I think they're real...

Yea, I believe, and yea, I've had some experiences. I live in Fredericksburg, Virginia, home to some twenty Civil War graveyards, and before that I lived in King George county, right next to an old Indian burial ground. My window faced the field that the burial gound occupied. That was freaky.

I guess that's why most of my games are horror-based, huh?

 

[ThomasBJJ]

I am very interested in the supernatural, but have never conclusively encountered any, nor known anyone who has (at least that was not already prone to fabrication). I've had a few wierd encounters, but they can all be explained by natural means. Just two weeks ago, I was alone working on a job site in the middle of the night, and someone poked me in the shoulder. But no one was there. I told my boss about it, he said thats funny, cuz he was hearing voices there the night before.
Unfortunately, I can't truely believe it till I see it. I WANT to believe, but have not yet got the conclusive proof (for myself).

 

[adndgamer]

Yes (belief in them) and no (experience with them). And I'd like to keep it that way if possible.

 

[Ulrick]

I don't know and I'm not certain.

I do believe there is something out there. Some supernatural force, call it spirits, demons, angels, whatever.

Now here's my stories:

1. When I was really little--a toddler at most. I had night terrors. I remember on occasion waking up screaming and running through the house. It would take a half-hour to for my family to calm me down. All I remember from these experiences is that I felt like there was no safe place to go, not even in my mother's arms.. And, that some kind of presence was there next to my cradle (yes, I was very little). I don't think I knew what to tell my mom. I guess I felt she wouldn't believe me.
I'm even still a little scared of the dark to this day.

2. My sister bought an Ouija board when I was about four years old. One night when she had her friends over they were using it. I came into the room and got sick and threw up on it.

Since then everytime I saw that thing I got a feeling of dread.

3. Again, when I was little--this time about 5 or 6, I starting going down to this creek near my house. This creek actually ran beneath an autoparts store and a nearby street. Inside it was cavelike and spooky. But I always felt another "presence" there beneathe autoparts store area. When I'd go into the tunnel beneath the street, the presence would cease.

Then I learned from my babysitter that somebody had hung himself beneath the store. I had happened when my sister and brother were about my age.

More Ouija Board tales
4.That thing got put into my closet when we moved to an apartment. Once I woke up at night I swore I heard scratching at my closet door. I still was scared of that thing although I was around 12 years old.

5. One night I even woke up and swore for a second my digital clock read 6:66. Whether or not that had anything to with my Ouija board I'm not certain.

6. I started using that board with some friends. One day a guy named Jeff and I sat down with it near a playground at the apts we lived at. He berated the thing. "I don't believe you! You'll have to do something to make me believe!"

"Have a bird land within ten feet of us!"

A crow landed nearby, then flew off.

"Have a one of those kids fall down."

Before he finished the sentence, a kid on the merry-go-round fell of and hurt his knee.

"Have ten semitrucks go through that intersection in ten seconds."

He was referring to a hwy junction nearby. Nothing happened. So we pack up the board. He went home. As soon has he left, semitrucks came from all directions. While they didn't cross that intersection under ten seconds. I counted ten trucks.

7. A lot of the stuff it'd say really freaked people out. So I decided that I wouldn't use it anymore. I told people this, and some got a little angry with me--honestly, they acted a lot like Bilbo when Frodo showed him the Ring in the house of Elrond. Except there was no "AAAAHH." Just a hint of anger in their eyes.

8. I decided to get rid of that Ouija board. A friend of mine was the son of a priest. I called and asked him what I should do and he just told me to come over. Their trailer was about a block away next to the apt. I took my bike.

As I came upon a corner I got this feeling that a car was gonna come around it and hit me. So I swerved just as a car came barreling around the corner at a high speed. It would have hit me I hadn't of swerved. I didn't hear it coming nor did I see its head lights.

I get to my friends place and we take a hammer and break it. I got to break the moving piece. My friend got to break the board.
We threw it away.

9. Three days latter, that family gets into a car accident. Though nobody was hurt, their car was totaled. Immediately my friend's dad gets out of the car and looks around. They were all alone on that highway on a level spot where you could see for miles.
There was no other car in sight. They don't know what hit them from behind!

Ulrick